| Observer: | Tom Campbell |
| Location: | Iola, Kansas (Long: 95 30' W Lat: 37 55' N) |
| Telescope: | 60mm f/11.7 Refractor |
| Eyepieces: | Homemade Kellner 22mm, Huygen 20mm, Kellner 12.5mm, Ortho 6mm |
| Time: | 10:45pm - 11:50pm CDT |
| Transparency: | Clear |
| Seeing: | Steady |
Tonight, I couldn't believe how clear the sky was. The Milky Way was about the most prominent that it had been all year. So I took advantage of the situation and got in a little spontaneous observing. I didn't have any star charts prepared, so I decided to revisit some old friends.
At low power, a bright star appears on each end of the cluster, with two slightly fainter close stars between them, at about a 45-degree angle to the others. Between these four stars is a lot of nebulosity. At around 116x, an additional two or three stars are visible. Overall, it's not a very impressive cluster, but its unique bar shape is distinctive.
This is one of my favorite objects in Cassiopeia. Its two "eyes" shine prominently and the basic shape made by the strings of stars can be seen at low power. I find it interesting to note that in my low-power views, it looks more like an owl, and at higher power, as more stars become visible, it comes closer to resembling a stick figure man.
O NGC 7243 - 11:00pm CDTI was sweeping the Cygnus area, trying to remember exactly where M39 was, when I came across this fairly dim cluster. At low powers, its not a very impressive cluster, with only about a dozen or so stars visible. At higher powers, more stars become apparent. The shape is irregular, and one end seems to be marked by a fairly bright double star, of similar brightness.
O M34 - 11:25pm CDTBy this time, M34 was climbing out of the horizon soup. At low power, about a dozen stars are visible, in a roughly globular pattern. At 56x, the cluster takes up nearly the entire field of view, with a few dozen stars visible. The center of the cluster is more tightly packed than the outer edges, and consists of several pairs of stars.
O NGC 869 / NGC 884 (Double Cluster) - 11:30pm CDTThis is another one of my favorite deep sky objects. These clusters appear best at low powers, when both can be seen in the same field of view. They appear as two loose balls of stars. One of the clusters appears slightly larger, and the other cluster appears slightly brighter. At higher powers, a lot more stars are visible in both clusters, but only a single cluster will appear in the field of view, which diminishes a lot of its uniqueness and beauty.
# M57 (Ring Nebula) - 11:40pm CDTAt low powers, this planetary nebula is barely visible as a fuzzy star. At 56x, it looks a little larger and out of focus when compared with nearby stars. No ring structure was apparent through my telescope.